Germany: exit polls show Olaf Scholz’s party narrowly beating far-right AfD in key state election – Europe live | Germany

Initial reactions are filtering in from party leaders after exit polls in Brandenburg show the Social Democrats in a narrow lead ahead of the far-right AfD.

At the Brandenburg SPD’s election gathering at the Old Post, a restaurant near the state parliament in Potsdam, there were jubilant cries as the news came in. One reporter on the scene called the response ‘cathartic’, after weeks of a nail biting campaign in which it looked like the party would lose to the AfD for the first time.

Dietmar Woidke, Brandenburg’s leader, who had gambled his future on the result, saying he would resign if his SPD lost to the AfD, took to the floor around 6.15pm telling supporters he was relieved, ‘considering the starting position we were in”.

“We said we’d take on this battle and we said our goal at the outset was to ensure our land didn’t get a big brown stamp on it,” he said.

But he urged SPD members to “put on the euphoria brakes” as the final result was not fully clear.

A second exit poll, from ZDF, also gives the SPD a narrow lead:

Social Democratic party (SPD): 32%

Alternative für Deutschland (AfD): 29%

Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW): 12%

Christian Democratic Union (CDU): 11.5%

Greens: 4.5%

Voting has ended in Brandenburg. Here’s a first exit poll, from ARD:

Social Democratic party (SPD): 31%

Alternative für Deutschland (AfD): 30%

Christian Democratic Union (CDU): 12%

Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW): 12%

Greens: 5%

A so-called ‘firewall’ has been put up by the established parties, meaning they will not form a coalition with the AfD.

Who is Dietmar Woidke?

Kate Connolly

Dietmar Woidke, Brandenburg’s popular state leader from the SPD, who has been incumbent for 14 years, has upped the ante by pledging to resign if the AfD wins on Sunday. He has even excluded Olaf Scholz from his election campaign – despite the fact he and his wife live in the state capital, Potsdam – fearing the negative impact of his presence.

The personalised campaign around Woidke, including a picture-driven fireside interview in which he talked about his pets and his playlist, has the cheeky campaign slogan: “Wenn Glatze, dann Woidke” (If you want a skinhead, choose Woidke) – a cryptic reference to his bald head and the most physical of Nazi trademarks.

He has repeatedly attempted to push voters’ attention towards the state’s economic successes.

In Cottbus, about 75 miles (120km) south of Berlin, this includes the gleaming new teaching hospital, and plans to transform an old gravel pit into a huge lakeside leisure complex, both a result of multibillion euro funds to help east Germany’s largest coal-producing region to exit from fossil fuels.

Kate Connolly

As people seek answers as to why the AfD has managed to secure such a prominent position in German politics since its foundation in 2013, the question was put to author Jenny Erpenbeck at a reading of her widely acclaimed International Booker prize winning novel Kairos – set in the final days of the East German regime – at the Potsdam literary festival LIT:Potsdam on Saturday night.

Erpenbeck, who was born in communist-run east Berlin in 1967, stressed she was no apologist for, or supporter of the AfD.

But to understand something of the party’s success, one only had to recognise the level of lingering discontentment which existed in eastern Germany today, over the way in which the reunification was carried out, she said, after 40 years of the GDR. Even 34 years since reunification, eastern Germans often felt greatly under-represented in Germany.

“Forty years are 40 years,” she said. “And I think the transition was difficult. You just need to look at the numbers: Only 2% of the management positions in companies, in universities, in the media are in eastern German hands. Let me put it this way: I think that easterners are also quite capable of being able to run a western newspaper.

“I think that there is simply a feeling people have that they are not really represented, that they are not heard. The east German-born theatre director, Frank Castorf, coined this beautiful expression: ‘the AfD is the revenge of the East’, and I believe that it really is like that.

“There was such a long wait to really be noticed, and not just to be welcomed, but actually to be recognised as capable of taking on positions of responsibility.”

It remained a particularly sore point, she said, that the pensions of eastern Germans still remained below the level of those western Germans receive, “which I think is hugely absurd. There has been a lot of injustice like this.” These experiences had not been properly dealt with, or discussed, she said.

“There’s no complaints office, as it were. And this has led to a lot of dissatisfaction and unfortunately it’s pretty late in the day now.”

LIT:Potsdam’s moderator Denis Scheck was quick to point out the deep irony that a party “as thoroughly West German as the AfD” – having started its life in 2013 as a group mainly made up of western German professors and business people, and most of whose leaders now are western Germans – had so successful managed to “hijack this discontent”.

Erpenbeck responded:

“Yes, it’s an interesting and strange fact that the most prominent AfD politicians come from the West. I don’t have much to say about this, other than that I’m not voting for the AfD”.

Ahead of today’s election in Brandenburg, polling showed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the Social Democratic party (SPD) neck-and-neck for first place.

High turnout in Brandenburg

Kate Connolly

On what has been a gloriously sunny autumn day in Brandenburg, voter turnout is thought to have been high.

By 2pm local time, 46.1% of voters – 2.1 million are eligible, including 100,000 new voters, after the voting age was lowered to 16 – had cast their ballot, according to the state election registrar.

At the same time on the last election day five years ago, 31.3% had been to the polling booth.

Polling stations opened at 8am and will close at 6pm local time.

What’s at stake in Brandenburg?

Kate Connolly

Voters in the northern German state of Brandenburg are today deciding not only on the future make up of the regional parliament but holding what is being seen as the equivalent of a referendum on the future of the embattled coalition government of Olaf Scholz.

His Social Democrats have ruled in Brandenburg, the state that surrounds Berlin like a doughnut, since reunification in 1990.

All eyes are on the state, as the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was leading in the final pre-election polls with 28%, ahead of the Social Democratic party (SPD), and could be about to win the state for the first time.

However, in what is being described as a neck and neck race, the SPD has considerably narrowed the gap in recent days, and in final polls was just a single percentage point behind the AfD, with 27%.

The SPD’s incumbent leader, Dietmar Woidke, has effectively gambled his party’s success in the vote on his own popularity ratings, pledging to resign if the AfD beats his party. The AfD has called for the resignation of Chancellor Scholz in the event of its winning the state.

In what has become an increasingly fractured political landscape in recent years (the AfD came into being 11 years ago), the newcomers, Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a left-wing, conservative grouping which broke away from the far-left Die Linke and has been in existence since January, has a good chance of entering government. It was polling around 13% in final surveys.

A so-called ‘firewall’ has been put up by the established parties, meaning they will not form a coalition with the AfD. This has the potential to make the BSW a kingmaker in any powerbroking.

The Greens and pro-business FDP – the junior partners in Scholz’s government, are at risk of failing to reach the 5% hurdle needed to get into parliament.

Three weeks ago the AfD upended the status quo by winning the state election in Thuringia with 33% – the first time a far-right force had won a state election in post-war Germany – accompanied by a strong second place in neighbouring Saxony with more than 30%.

Far-right AfD looking to make German history in Brandenburg state election

Kate Connolly

About 2.5 million Brandenburgers are eligible to vote today in what may be one of the smallest German states population-wise, comprising a belt of rural, and suburban settlements surrounding Berlin.

Yet, with its predicted boost for the far-right party, the race is drawing a huge amount of attention that belies the state’s size. Three weeks ago, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) upended the status quo with its win in Thuringia – the first time a far-right force had won a state election in post-war Germany – accompanied by a strong second place in neighbouring Saxony with more than 30%.

Marianne Spring-Räumschüssel, an AfD representative on Cottbus city council, predicted a “glorious” victory for the AfD, which has been leading the polls in the state for more than a year. “You can smell it in the air.”

As the only state in eastern Germany where the Social Democrats have ruled continuously since German reunification in 1990, Brandenburg’s vote is seen as a particular test for the embattled coalition government of the SPD chancellor, Olaf Scholz, which, according to a poll this week, only 3% of Germans are convinced is good for the country.

With Brandenburg’s vote being viewed as a referendum on Scholz’s government, defeat for the SPD would be of deep symbolic significance, particularly before next autumn’s Bundestag election.

Read the full story here.